Animal Instincts

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I do my best to be hip, cool, and sensitive to all sensibilities. I try to be as politically correct as possible even referring to French fries as the Gender-fluid Offspring Of Idaho Potatoes. I don’t call them French because French is a trigger word, and I don’t call them Freedom fries because, well, they can’t be truly free if they’re being dipped in scalding cooking oil before being eaten.

I’m basically a macro-aggressor because I just can’t keep up with what is correct these days. I think I’m in the only group that’s ok to bash – older white men. It’s a little confusing because being bashed is a sort of white privilege.

Of course, plenty of politically correct things come from good intentions (I think). You know, it’s really not cool to just attach racial or disparaging tags to people. Ok, don’t call those people so-and-so. Fair and fine. But if someone “identifies” as a cat or some other thing you’re not getting me to go along. I might be sympathetic to their mental illness but I’m not gonna say “Meow” to them as a hello. I’m not gonna provide them their own kitty litter box if they need to go. Perhaps that makes me callous.

And despite my statement about being sensitive, I do hold on to some cro-magnon points of view – which seems shared by millions of kids. The Ringling Bros. announced this week that the Circus was shutting down for good after 146 years. It had been struggling for years finding it harder to compete with movies and theme parks and other fun things. But it managed. Not anymore. And why? Mostly because they took the elephants away. Animal rights activists had been after the Circus for a long time, and they got their way in 2016 when the Circus opted to eliminate the elephant show and sent the elephants packing. Kids left with them.

I know, I know, animals are people, too. But man, those kids who now choose to skip the circus? They shoulda been around for the old days. The Prospect Zoo was practically animal jail. These great, amazing animals were squeezed into cells better suited for Hannibal Lechter. But you could really see lions, rhinos, polar bears, giraffes. I think the zoo even had a yak. You could almost touch them between the bars.

The circus, again, in the old days, used to put lions and tigers and monkeys in barred wagons and let crowds check them out before the show.

It was barbaric. But it was friggin’ awesome.

There’s a scene in the original Mighty Joe Young where the big ape goes ape and frees some of the caged animals. And then they repaid some humans. It was that possibility that made gawking at them so cool. You’d look at the bars and check out what kind of lock was keeping that animal from springing out and having you for lunch.

Not today. Animals now have meals prepared by zoo chefs. They wouldn’t eat no stinkin’ humans. They’re privileged. Wait a second, that might spell trouble for them…